Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1887-06-10
Savages Who are.Rich.
REDSKINS WHO HAVE PICNICS AND E.
PLOY WHITE LABORERS.

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Savages Who are. Rich.
REDSKINS WHO HAVE PICNICS AND EN-
PLOY WHITE LABoRERs.
WASHINGTON, June 4.-ScnatOr
Platt, who went southwest with Scna.
tors Cullom and Blackburn, as select
committee to investigate certain allega-
tions with respect to appointments Of
Indian traders, in speaking of the In
dian Territory, said to a reporter to-
day:
The Indians receive annuities and
lease money and are periodically
" flush" for few days at time; at all
other seasons they are the debtors OF
the traders, who usually have one-hali
or three-quarters of the investments
outstanding.
The Indians pay theil debts prompt.
ly enough when they have money to
traders who remain in business and
who can continue to trust them, but
one whose doors are closed, or who, as
in some some cases, is peremptorily
ordered away from the Territory, has
no chance of recovering more than O
fraction of his dues.
When the new appointees are men
of means and experience the stocks oil
goods on hand, buildings and fixtures
can sometimes be disposed of by them
but the fact that they come armed
with exclusive franchises places the
outgoing trader at their mercy as re.
CARDS price. In several instances the
new appointees were not men OF prop.
erty, who openly proposed to the old
traders copartnership, the latter to fur
nish capital, experience and time, and
the former nothing but the license.
EFFECTS OF INDIAN OWNERSHIP.
"It is fair to say" says the Senator,
/" that licenses of this class have
usually been cancelled as soon as the
fact became known"
The committee took trip into the
Indian Territory for personal observa-
ton. They saw q number of things
which astonished them.
Southern Kansas Senator Platt des-
cribes it as one Of the most fertile por-
tions of this country. Every foot is
under cultivation. Cultivated fields,
waving crops, orchards, groves and
green lodges, through and among
which are seen neat cottages and sub
stantial barns and outbuildings, are
the pleasing features of the landscape.
But when the Indian country is
reached all signs of human life and
cultivation cease, and in their stead
one sees only an ocearr-like expanse OF
unproductive prairie.
INDIAN LAND MONOPOLY.
Almost directly south of Arkansas
City lies the Kaw reservation-more
than 10000 acres of as fine land as
can be found in the west. This fine
land is the property of tribal rem
nant numbering exactly 1877 individ-
uals, counting women and children.
These people are worthless beggars
upon whom the best efforts of philan-
thropy are lavished in vain. The com.
mittee rode 20 or Is miles across this
reservation without discovering sin
gle sign of human life except the wire
fences of the cattlemen and the build.
ings at the agency.
Coming into the Usage country they
found q million and half of acres, re-
served for about 1900 people, two.
thirds of whom are full bloods as un.
cultured and worthless as their ances-
tors of century ago.
INDIAN LANDLORDS AND WHITE LABOR
ERS.
These degraded savages are, per
capita, the wealthiest human beings
on the globe. If their trust fund and
their land were divided among them
every man, woman and child would
possess q fortune of about $4,000.
A few of them have taken to farm
ing," but this development is not all
that might be gathered from the bart
statement. They toll not with thei,
hands, but employ white men to do it.
The fastidious autocrats are daily seer
coming to the agency, wrapped in
their gaudy blankets, to purchase sup.
plies. For their own consumption
they select the most delicious viands
and will take nothing else; but 70,
their white laborers they buy the
cheaper and coarser grades.
DEGRADED, THOUGH WEALTHY.
Notwithstanding this discrimination
when it is a matter of purchasing sup
plies they are beggarly starvelings as a
general thing, and are moved to as
founding feats of gluttony when they
can manage to get beeve for feast
Meat, bones and entrails are put into
the common soup-kettle, and the hiIe
would doubtless follow but for the fact
that other uses are found for it. The
habits of these beings were not taken
by the committee upon trust. A re-
ligious dance and festival of some
days duration was taking place near
the agency and the committee went to
see it.
ONE hundred and forty-eight million
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